


Between My Breaking

by Megalodont



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Accidental Plot, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Teenagers, F/M, Familial Abuse, Implied/Referenced Attempted murder, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, No Incest, Non-Graphic Violence, Not Canon Compliant - Movie 2: Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, Obscurials (Harry Potter), Religious Conflict, Religious Fanaticism, Trauma Bonding, Violence against Children, accidental murder
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-02
Updated: 2019-05-02
Packaged: 2020-02-16 00:27:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18680371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Megalodont/pseuds/Megalodont
Summary: •| ❛so heaven meets earth like a sloppy wet kiss and my heart turns violently inside of my chest. i don't have time to maintain these regrets.❜ |•ariana dumbledore was fragile. she always had been. sheltered from the world and shielded from the worst. now, however, the worst is all ariana can see. that, and the gobsmacked face of a german boy her brother may or may not have fancied rushing away from her and his crimes. whatever happened that day left her two brothers dead and ariana left to find her own redemption. across the pond to a place called new york city, where the laws of magic are different.for another, her arrival seems nothing short of miraculous. he can feel her the minute she steps off of the boat. but getting a glimpse of her may be another matter.





	Between My Breaking

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for taking a chance on this story! basically, this completely ignores that absolutely ridiculous plot twist at the end of crimes of grindelwald because it's silly. bad jo, stop it. obviously, as this is an au, this will not follow the original timeline of events for either series. this means ages will be changed, people who were originally alive are dead, people who were originally dead are alive, you get the idea.

> _Her ears were ringing._  Her vision was fuzzy and her head was pounding. There was dirt in her mouth. 

"Albus! Albus! Wake up! Please! We have to get out of here!" A thick, German accent pleaded. Quietly, Ariana spat out the soil and gazed in the direction of the voice. She could just see his mop of blonde hair over the thin blades of grass. That was not one of her brothers. That was Bathilda Bagshot's nephew, that Grindelwald boy Albus was always trailing after, idolizing, fantasizing about. As the young blonde rose to her knees, she coughed out a few remaining clumps of dirt, startling the young man and causing him to rush away.

"Coward!" Ariana shouted hoarsely after him. She panted softly, taking a moment to inspect her surroundings. Her brothers did not move and by some instinct, she knew they would not. They would not get up and get out of here. They would lie there until magical law enforcement came and found them like this. She stumbled and staggered, the ringing in her ears was messing with her balance. She took a moment to reach out and steady herself.

Once the ringing in her ears died away, Ariana made her way into the house. The now empty, almost lifeless house. It had felt cold since her mother passed away, but now it just seemed silent, as though all the remaining happiness in it had died with Albus and Aberforth. Why hadn't the tears, the agony, come yet? Ariana should have been devastated, but all she felt right now was numb.  _Survival_ , Ariana told herself. She did not have the time yet to grieve. She had to leave this place. She had to abandon her home in Godric's Hollow forever if she did not want to take the fall for crimes that were not hers. She could not make that Grindelwald pay in Azkaban Prison, could she? That is if revenge was what she really wanted. Ariana didn't really know. Her thoughts were scrambled and all she was truly focused on was getting out of Godric's Hollow, maybe even out of England altogether. But where, then, did a young witch go with little wizard money and no muggle money at all? Where did a girl with no knowledge of the outside world even go? 

**~✾~**

_"Take it off."_ She instructed through gritted teeth. Her eyes flashed with anger and the boy knew better than to hesitate. His fingers fumbled with his belt buckle slightly as he undid it as fast as he could. She did not like to be kept waiting. After a moment of fevered silence, the belt slid through the loops on his trousers and he placed it in her extended hand.

"Come then, Credence." His mother ordered, beginning her slow ascent up the stairs. Credence followed behind, trudging as though he was being escorted to his execution. He knew what was coming and so did she. He knew all too well. It was silent until his mother shut the door behind them. And then, the thunderous cracks began echoing throughout the room. He bit down on his hand to keep from screaming in pain. She did not like it when he screamed or cried. She would continue when he screamed, incessantly calling him weak and wicked. She didn't care if he said he was sorry. 

He'd learned to even hold back the small noises of discomfort. The grunts of dismay too were swallowed back as the blood ran down his thighs, pooling in the backs of his knees.

He himself would have to wash the stains from his trousers. 

"You should know better by now, Credence!" His mother chided. "Not in my house- _Never_  in my house, do you hear me?"

"Yes, Ma'am!"  He said, catching a sob in his throat. A final, thundering strike echoed throughout the room and he slumped, his breath coming in loud pants. The pain was gone; he was mostly numb now. Not like that was any better. He didn't try to stand up. There was no need. He was far too weak for that at the moment. 

"Time for bed in ten minutes." His mother instructed, before closing the door behind herself. That suited Credence just fine. He was quite tired after his punishment, though he would have to sleep on his left side, as his right had blistered and stung far more than usual. 

Ten minutes was more than enough time to wash up.

**~✾~**

_The boat_   _had been a stroke of luck Ariana had not anticipated_ , but delighted in regardless. It was a smaller, passenger ship selling third class tickets to America for around twenty muggle pounds. Getting the money had been no delicate matter and Ariana had always considered herself above stealing, but she supposed a few lighter pockets wouldn't be noticed. It was the magical currency she would be needing. That could be converted at an American Wizard Bank and used to buy magical things. The magical things she knew of, anyway. The things she'd grown up with. Would she need muggle clothes?

Ariana would not wear muggle clothes. She detested muggles, was disgusted at the very thought of those unsophisticated cretins. They did not understand her, why should she make any attempt to understand them? After what  _they'd_ done to her. 

The cabin was tiny, but not too small for a girl of Ariana's size. Though she was not a child, she had always been somewhat sickly. Something inside of her had always been ill. Yet, holding her mother's wand, which she had unceremoniously snatched from its case atop the mantle, gave her a strange feeling of power. Ariana had always known she was a witch, from the time she was a young girl. Even after what happened. 

_She'd always liked the flowers in her mother's yard. They were so pretty. Even at her young age, the petals just seemed to dance in her small hands. Every night in the summer she'd come out here to watch them._

_'Lookie 'ere boys!' Came an unfamiliar voice. Immediately, Ariana tried to hide the flower. Her parents had taught her she always had to hide it from the muggles. But they had already seen and already made their judgement._

_'Come on, girlie, no need to 'ide! Show us a magic trick!'_

_'Leave me alone!' Ariana said, turning to make her way inside of the house. A hand wrapped around her small arm._

_'Where d'you think you're going? We wanna see one of your magic tricks!' He demanded, shoving her back into another large teen. They were far older than her brothers._

_'I don't want to!' Ariana protested, trying to shove past them. 'Leave me alone!'_

_'Not until you show us a magic trick!' The ringleader, a tall young man, demanded._

_'No!' Suddenly, the side of Ariana's face exploded in pain._

_'Do it!'_

_'Stop!' She cried, before being shoved to the ground. Seconds later, hands wrapped around her small throat._

_'Don't want to show us one of your tricks, huh? Too bad. I guess we'll just have to beat it out of ya.' Clawing and screaming was useless; her small frame barely registered to the large young male pressing down onto her neck._

_'Daddy! Daddy, help me!' She screamed out, hoping that her father or someone in the house could hear her cries of distress. Her vision was going fuzzy. There was a ringing in her ears and she couldn't breathe._

_'You wanna show us a magic trick now, little girl?' A voice taunted. Tears stung at Ariana's eyes as she dug at her tormentor's hands in a desperate attempt to free herself._

_Then, a sound that echoed like a gunshot. Or, at least what Ariana equated with a gunshot. She'd never heard one before, guns were not necessary for wizards and they'd never been around families who owned a firearm._

_The next sound she heard was her father's thundering voice. 'CRUCIO!'_

Ariana clenched her teeth. Her father has been imprisoned for protecting her and from then on, the little Dumbledore girl only equated magic with one thing:  **Pain.**

**~✾~**

_"Awake with you, Credence!"_  Came his mother's voice from the other side of the door. It was not locked, that wasn't allowed, but she at least granted her son some privacy in the morning. His lower half still stung from last night's punishment, but he would survive. He had done so before. Sixteen years of life with this woman had taught Credence that he could probably survive anything after this. 

He'd dreamed of a blonde girl. A fair, blue-eyed girl who seemed fragile as his mother's porcelain knick-knacks. He was not allowed to touch those. Did that mean he could not touch the girl in his dreams? That would be disappointing. Even if she was real, which he reminded himself she was not.

He dared not tell his mother; He would be severely punished. His mother didn't like things that seemed out of the ordinary. Even if they weren't his fault, she would still punish him for it. She punished Credence for everything and he hated it. He hated her. He dared not utter those words out loud, but he felt his hatred for her in the depths of his soul, burning like the fires of hell. He, however, did not hate her nearly as much as he hated himself.

Credence used to dream of some as yet unknown relative coming to take him away from this awful place, but it never happened and he doubted that it ever truly would. Just as the fair, blue-eyed girl had never happened and never would.

He was the last to be dressed and down the stairs. After sauntering into the kitchen, he pressed a grudging kiss to his mother's cheek and mumbled a good morning to her. A breakfast of porridge, as usual, washed down by a cup of tea and an apple. This was the only life Credence Barebone had ever known and the only one he was sure he would ever know. 

**~✾~**

_The moment Ariana's head hit the pillow,_ the tears finally came.  First, in a slow dribble, one by one. And then in a showering lamentation of pain, which she had to bury her face into the pillow to dampen the sounds of. She didn't fancy the idea of explaining to a guard that she was sobbing because her brothers were dead and it may be her fault. She hated even thinking about that possibility. She had lost control many times before, but she had been doing much better until then. Even if her mother's death had been Ariana's fault-and her brothers swore up and down that it was not, could not be. Not on purpose. Ariana had not lost control since then, until that Grindelwald boy had convinced Albus to run away with him, to rule the dirty muggles together. It sickened Ariana to even think that Albus would go with him. She felt betrayed. Albus was her family, the only person who could really take care of her. Aberforth was competent, but he had always preferred the company of his goat friends over her and Albus. It was a blow she had not seen coming and it would be a lie to say that it didn't hurt.

Then, to hear them arguing over it, over  _her_ , just made Ariana angry. They talked about her like she was some dirty bath towel, not a human being! It was insulting. When they all started duelling, it became too much for Ariana.

And the next thing she knew, she was lying face down in the dirt, listening to Grindelwald begging Albus to wake up. As though Albus wasn't dead, as though the dead could rise again at the behest of someone who probably cared nothing for them. Didn't Grindelwald know it didn't work that way, even with magic?

He had to, parading around his wand and calling it some sort of 'Deathstick' and claiming he would become a master of death. He believed in fairy tales and children's stories. Ariana had given up on those long ago and she was younger than Grindelwald.


End file.
